You might imagine that Beethoven’s Violin Concerto was available in a definitive version. But the current version has been proved to contain errors in many details, reason for Jonathan Del Mar to edit the work afresh from scratch, and to provide today’s musicians with a reliable basis to work from.

“People are on a journey through present-day Egypt; whilst searching for its origins, they encounter their own wilderness as an absence of memory...” Thus Beat Furrer describes the plot of Wüstenbuch. His new music theatre piece after texts by Händl Klaus, Ingeborg Bachmann and others receives its first performance at the Theater Basel in a production by Christoph Marthaler on 15 March. The first German performance takes place at Maerzmusik Berlin on 27 March. Before then, on 12 February, at Eclat 2010 in Stuttgart, Begehren was performed in a staged production by the Ensemble Modern and the SWR Stuttgart Vocal Ensemble conducted by Beat Furrer, with sets designed by rosalie. At the Konzerthaus Wien Xenos III for Percussion and Chamber Orchestra was premiered on 1 March by Ensemble Resonanz and Dirk Rothbrust (percussion).  

There is an abundance of sources for Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah, which was hailed as the most important work of its day soon after its first performance. Bärenreiter’s new edition sheds new light on the work.

Philipp Maintz, who was awarded the scholarship of the Deutsche Akademie Rom Villa Massimo, has written an orchstral work for his home city of Aachen. archipel describes a group of islands which are linked under water and whose peaks project. Thus, in the archipelago, there are on the one hand ”subterranean” links to the material in his opera project Maldoror (Munich Biennale 2010), and on the other hand, it reflects a special compositional structure; however, Philipp Maintz has conceived the orchestral work as a grouping of separate parts, whose continuity and branching out is interrupted by vertical intersections.  Music director Markus R. Bosch has conducted the first performance with the Aachen Symphony Orchestra on 22 October 2008.

Manfred Trojahn, who celebrates his 60th birthday on 22 October, has been awarded  the Deutscher Musikautorenpreis in the symphonic category; the prize has been awarded for the very first time in Berlin by GEMA, the German performing rights society. Trojahn has composed sentimento del tempo. music for solo violin, two flutes and strings. ansbachisches konzert 2009 for the Bachwoche Ansbach, which was contrasted with Johann Sebastian Bach’s 4th Brandenburg Concerto in a concert given by the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra on 7 August.

The Austrian composer Thomas Daniel Schlee has written three important new works which are being premiered in Konstanz, Vienna and Stuttgart: his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra has been premiered on 1 April by the Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz, conducted by Thomas Kalb. The soloist was Klaus Sticken. To mark the 50th anniversary of the ensemble “die reihe”, Schlee’s Enchantement vespéral, commissioned by the ensemble, was premiered on 3 June in the Broadcasting House of Austrian Radio in Vienna. Schlee has composed Spes unica for large orchestra for Württembergisches Staatsorchester. Manfred Honeck conducts the first performance on 12 July in Stuttgart.

Matthias Pintscher has composed a new three-part cycle for ensemble with sonic eclipse. The first part, celestial object I, was premiered by the Scharoun Ensemble in the concert "Hommage an Claudio Abbado" in Berlin. The premiere of celestial object II was given in Zermatt at the Berliner Philharmoniker’s summer academy. Pintscher has composed the third part, occultation, for Klangforum Wien on the occasion of the group’s 25th anniversary. It will be premiered in 2010 in Witten as part of the complete cycle.